Into the Christofash Weeds: Awaken Church

Contributing Writer- Kate Burns

06/01/2023

Awaken “church.” Formerly C3 San Diego, Awaken was born in early 2020 as Jurgen’s preaching became more radical. The franchise has 6 locations—5 In San Diego County: Balboa, Bressi Ranch, El Cajon, Eastlake, San Marcos, Boise Idaho and one in Salt Lake City in Utah. Jurgen plans to open 3 more locations in the next six months. 

Awaken has become a hotbed for San Diego’s Christofascist scene. It’s a regular stop for some of America’s biggest right wing mouthpieces including Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Sean Feucht and Clay Clark’s “Reawaken America” tour featuring Michael Flynn, Roger Stone and Eric Trump. The church is also in bed with Charlie Kirk and TPUSA Faith. They recently launched a partnership headed up by Awaken’s very own Louis Uridel, who was at TPUSA’s America Fest last December in Arizona. Their preoccupation with politics and culture wars has been building since their re-branding in Jan 2020. Their culture war push has seen founders, pastors and congregants involved in actions at San Diego city council meetings, School Boards, anti LGBTQ protests—and at the January 6th, 2021 Capitol Riot. 

Awaken squarely follows the playbook of other megachurch chains like Hillsong and C3 with their flashy, social media-tailored presence. They target Christian hipsters, young families and youth to join the fold and engage in their programs. These young people are then encouraged to seek out others to join the church.

Awaken centers itself as a leader in the new wave of evangelical churches involved in the “spiritual war” driven by the likes of Flynn and Kirk. Awaken’s goal, although they don’t say this directly, is to have Christianity dominate U.S. and eventually global society.

Awaken’s ideology isn’t unique to them. It’s called dominionism and is informed by a philosophy called  the 7 Mountain Mandate.

The “7 Mountains” are different aspects of society, such as the arts, education and government, that dominionists seek to control. 

Originally the 7 Mountains came out of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR.) The NAR movement thinks of itself as its own branch of Christianity the way Catholicism and Protestantism are branches. The NAR distinguish themselves by appointing “apostles” and “prophets” to head the movement and fervently believe in merging god and government. They were an influential presence during the Trump Administration and continue to gain power. 

Awaken has programs and plans that cover each of the “7 Mountains.” They aim to seek control of Family (Cherish and Emerge), Religion (expanding their church’s footprint), Education (Awaken academy, Awaken U) , Media (App, podcast and TPUSA), Entertainment (Awaken music and Theatre), Business (PublicSq.), and Government (Awaken political action and RMNNT.) 

AWAKEN’S FRIENDS

Awaken’s guest speaker lineup includes a lot of high-profile far-right figures. Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host who pushes the white supremacist “great replacement theory,” was a guest speaker in April last year. Tickets were priced from $30.00 to $5,000. VIP tickets included front row seating and a meet-and-greet. Candace Owens, who became a TPUSA staple and right-wing media darling for being Black and saying racism doesn’t exist, spoke at Awaken  in June of 2021. Dennis Prager of PragerU fame, was there in June of 2021. David Harris Jr spoke at Awaken itself but was also a speaker at Flynn’s Reawaken America Tour’s San Diego stop at the San Marcos campus last march.  

Dinesh D’souza, who authored books for evangelical publisher Tyndale House, spoke prior to the 2020 election. D’souza returned earlier this year to screen his election denial conspiracy film “2000 Mules” at the Awaken Salt Lake City campus. 

Jim Garlow, former Skyline megachurch pastor who was involved in “seize the power”MAGA prayer meeting prior to J6 has spoken on more than one occasion. Eric Metaxas, Evangelical radio host and author who is being sued by Dominion for spreading voter fraud claims spoke in March last year. Sean Feucht, the singing preacher who gained infamy for early-lockdown mass (and maskless) gatherings is a regular and has a long association with the church.

Dr. Simone Gold, a Capitol insurrectionist and fake COVID cure peddler, spoke there twice, most notably on July 22nd—prior to her prison term for her role in J6.

The Church launched a collaboration with TPUSA Faith officially last October with a newly created Instagram account. TPUSA ambassador and Awaken Church prayer leader Louis Uridel leads the effort. Uridel, who has a Three Percenter tattoo, was the guest speaker for the launch event. He posted a one-minute reel afterwards. 

“learn how you can make a difference in OUR COUNTRY and help infuse community and political activism with faith. It’s time for christians to rise up! We need to fight for the moral integrity of our country and it starts here,” Uridel’s post read.

Awaken itself started numerous groups and ministries with an overt political slant. Prior to the official launch of the TPUSA Faith and Awaken church collaboration, Kirk spoke at the church as well as the “Emerge Men” conference. Kirk then mentored “Emerge Men’s Ministry” attendees via Zoom calls. These split groups allow the church to reinforce its direct messaging on “traditional family values” and role-setting for the families of the congregation.

In the traditional/fundamentalist scene Awaken would be viewed as progressive as it allows women to preach. In reality, they’re just pink-washing their misogyny by having women preach it. The church is passionately anti-abortion and is known to preach about the evils of the “LGBTQ+ mafia”. 

The church also has its own burgeoning media empire that includes their app, podcast, “Awaken Worship,” their music outlet, “Awaken Film” and their own theater production group who in December held a “Night of Christmas” at the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park to a sold out crowd.

While keeping their parishioners entertained, Awaken also keeps them busy with their many “connect groups” which are broken down by age, focus and traditional family role. There is the men’s prayer group and the women’s prayer group who meet weekly while also holding the annual “Emerge Men” and “Cherish Women” conferences.

Awaken has a strong youth focus within the “connect”/mission groups, “Awaken Kidz” ages 0-11, “Awaken Youth” ages 11-18 and “Awaken Young Adults” ages 18-29. From age 30 you have an endless selection of options of “connect” groups at each location. They include titles like  “adults 30+ Spiritual warfare group”, “young professionals and Married couples,” “military,” “family and marriage,” “Mom’s hangout with Barbies and toddlers,” and “Miracle Thursday’s women’s prayer”. Across the 6 locations they have 130+ connect groups on offer.

Education? No problem. “Awaken Academy” has its own K-12 “hybrid school” which offers a creation-based curriculum and a mix of on-campus classes and homeschooling. In October last year they announced their next venture, “Awaken U’—a “University” where students will pay $225 a month ($2,700 annually). An application form on their website where it lists a “code of conduct”:

No Excessive drinking or illegal drugs

No sex or living with a partner outside of marriage  

No swearing or derogatory language 

Any further information is scarce, but the model comes straight from the Hillsong/C3 mega-church playbook. Jurgen himself studied at Hillsong ministry College in the 90’s.

The political action group RMNNT (pronounced ‘remnant’) is made up of self-described “warriors of liberty” who partner with Awaken. The group holds its monthly meetings at Awaken’s Balboa campus in downtown San Diego.

The group partners with Awaken to tap into the local Christian community much like Charlie Kirk does. They claim their goal is to  “hold our elected officials accountable.” 

RMNNT had been successful in getting their people included on the ballot last November. Awaken Pastor Andre Johnson ran for the Encinitas Union school board, Rich Truchinski for the Tri-City health care district, Karen Dominguez and Jesse Vigil ran for board seats at Chula Vista Elementary school, Morgan Magil for the Lakeside Community Planning group and Mary Davis ran for the Alpine Community Planning group.  RMNNT-trained candidates were unsuccessful, but 78 candidates they endorsed statewide won, 28 of which were school board candidates. 

In September last year Awaken themselves publicly launched “awaken political action,” including their own flag in red, white and blue.

“There is a misconception that the separation of church and state was to stop the church interfering with government, but in fact it was the exact opposite,” Jurgen statesIn a video about the PAC. 

According to the IRS’s charities, churches and politics policy, this is illegal.  The ban on political campaign activity has been in effect for more than half a century. 

The church’s preoccupation with local and nationwide politics did not begin this year. Awaken members and staff featured heavily in local media during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic for defying stay at home orders. Pastors, including Jurgen and Leanne, regularly posted COVID-19 disinformation to their social media platforms. Members and staff like Uridel and Deuth made coordinated efforts to appear at San Diego city council meetings, advocating against abortion, for removal of mandates for masks, and against vaccines and congregation restrictions. 

Awaken, under Jurgen’s leadership, received 1.4 Million in PPP loans during the lockdown.

Three of the church’s pastors were at the nation’s capital on January 6th, 2021. Samuel Deuth, Sterling Pyle and David Chiddick were in one of Deuth’s instagram posts of the event.

Samuel Deuth, one of Awaken’s lead pastors, spoke on stage at TPUSA events and regularly makes lengthy anti-LGBTQ statements on his social media profiles.

Deuth is also a regular at San Diego city council’s public comment dais. When Feucht held an anti-queer hate rally at Disneyland over Disney’s objection to Florida Governor DeSantis’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, Samuel Deuth attended. 

Deuth and Uridel also inserted themselves in an anti-drag protest last October. They targeted Ocean Knoll Elementary’s “Boo Bash” block party event, which had a drag show and was sponsored by TransFamily Support Services. Awaken staff and affiliates spread outrage bait about the event as soon as it was announced, which led to school board meetings getting brigaded and board members getting harassed. One of the protesters even went on Tucker Carlson to talk about it. Jurgen went on to preach about the hateful campaign, saying “we can replace woke with Awake.” Leanne claimed that “there is not one, NOT ONE, drag queen who is happy, stable or living with peace.”

Recently, Deuth spoke at an anti-trans event at the Santee YMCA alongside Proud Boys in regalia and a Nazi with a swastika tattoo. 

Deuth, Uridel and Leanne Matthesius all shared a call to action on their social media for the Santee city council meeting on February 8th as they continue on their hate-filled campaigns against the LGBTQ+ community and aim to “end the city lease to YMCA”. The Church later used its official text service to push the event under the “Awaken Political Action”arm of their organization.

Awaken are currently working on opening their next 3 locations. Bay Ho and Coronado in Southern California and Boise, Idaho which will be opening on Easter of this year. There is currently a “No Cult In Coronado” campaign being led by locals in the area concerned about Awaken’s growth in their community. This year has seen the church continuing on their war path, becoming less concerned about airing their hate publicly and teaming up with other SoCal PACs like “The Battle Cry” and “Freedom Revival Events”to attack the  Santee YMCA and local school boards. Their partnership with Feucht, Kirk and TPUSA Faith continues to grow and with the upcoming  “biblical citizenship in modern America.” They are welcoming Patriot Academy into the fold.

– Contributing writer, Kate Burns